Friday, September 24, 2010

Hard to believe she's been gone that long. Harder, still, to believe that she last slept in our bed in February '09.

I've been moody this past week. But I've also been productive. Her closet is mostly empty, and now even has a few of my things in it (in addition to her 803,972 pairs of shoes). Her pictures and some of her nick-nacks have been removed from the bedroom.

Somehow it has been an amazing process to look through her things this week. I've tried to do it before, but always got lost in sentimentality within the first 10 minutes. This time, I'm good for about an hour, and things that never had any real significance at all are finally just empty objects. Brushes, decorative boxes, pictures of people I never met.

And because I've spent so much time in my bedroom this week, I noticed how empty it sounds without all those things in it. It's weird, but the sound-signature in the room changes ever so slightly when any item is removed. Spend 7 years in a room without changing anything, and then take something out. See if you don't notice the same thing. This has actually made it hard for me to navigate to the bathroom in the dark--I'd never realized how much I relied on the sound of the room for that.

But I don't regret it. It needed to be done. More needs to be done. I can't hang on to artifacts. As Trent Reznor reminded me the other day, they're "just a fading fucking reminder of who I used to be."

And even crazier? I've found an inner peace in doing this cleaning. Sure, the room is bare right now, but somehow I feel like I'm finally laying Amanda to rest. Well, more so than I have before.

Monday, September 13, 2010

My little guy starts pre-school tomorrow. I'm super excited for him, and more than a little bit nervous that I'll forget to put some essential item into his tote-bag, but I figure it's high time to look back over the summer and reminisce a bit...

King's Dominion

We started the summer off by buying King's Dominion season passes. What a great idea! We've been no fewer than 4 times, and it's been a pretty easy way to mark his physical growth, which has been frankly astonishing. In June, he was just barely at 42"; able to ride the Ghoster Coaster (the Scooby Doo for you KD oldsters), Avalanche, and a couple of rides in Water Works. We spent a lot of time in the kids' area back then, when things like simple carnival rides were still really amusing to him.

We went back a couple of weeks ago for my birthday, and he'd grown 3 full inches. Since June! Holy crap! He's now big enough to ride Ricochet, which has instantly become his favorite ride. Without a doubt, we're gonna do season passes again next year.

The Little Gym

We renewed our membership at the Little Gym for pretty much the entire next year. A few weeks ago, one of the teachers completely accidentally figured out how to get Alastair excited about the gymnastic routines: let him lead the class. Since then, he's been far more engaged in the activities, though his little temper flares when the other kids don't do exactly what he's shown them. Oh, buddy, life is gonna be hard for you...

And he won a free birthday party! So come January, the only thing I have to worry about is providing them a guest list. Woot!

Virginia Beach

We capped our summer with a repeat of last year's big vacation: a week at the beach. Post-Labor Day rates made it really easy to justify spending a whole week, and the lower temperatures of September made the idea super appealing. It was awesome. He played in the sand, made beach friends, had two games of Putt Putt, ATE AND LOVED SUSHI, and was so exhausted on the last night that he didn't have one last swim left in him. He just wanted to go to bed. SO cute.

Go-Kart

He'll be old enough for league racing at the local dirt roundy-round next year, so I took the opportunity to get him started with a relatively fast electric kart. He's really taken to it, and I'm FINALLY getting him to the track for a whole weekend of motorized fun in early October (more on that later).

I know I'm forgetting a bazillionty things, like July 4th and countless other minor moments of awesome, but we've had a really good summer together. He's done two different Vacation Bible Schools, just graduated into a new Sunday School class, has started to actually play with other kids (instead of just co-playing). Yadda yadda yadda. My little boy is growing up. I love him so much!